Vegovis' Vegan Venture

[vegovis]

Hello :wavey:

I'm Vegovis, I'm vegan, and I'm bloomin' well going to succeed in finally re-educating my eating habits!

I've been dieting on-and-off for many, many years; not necessarily because I've been overweight but because I grew up with a parent who was constantly rotating through cabbage/Cambridge/F-Plan/Jenny Craig/<insert just about any other diet plan here>. As a result, I don't really have the healthiest of diets and certainly not a particularly healthy outlook on food.

I've been vegetarian for all of my adult life, and vegan (ethical) for the past 4 years or so. I was overweight not so long ago, and after embarking upon WW online I went from around 12 stone down to just under 10. I used to like WW because it was easy to log foods using the iPhone app, but I did find it quite restrictive and not particularly the healthiest option for a vegan as pulses were relatively high in points.

My mother has recently lost 4 stone with SW (she goes to classes, and is now almost at target weight from her 15 stone starting point), and has (hopefully) at the age of 70 finally beaten her diet demons! I've never known her to be so happy on a 'diet', nor in fact to actually be on one which works for her! I also have two good friends who've lost an incredible 10 stone between them (so far), so SW definitely comes with glowing recommendations!

I won't be going to classes as there are none near me at a day/time that suits, so my mother has sent me her old SW books, and I've ordered the set of three SW 2012 food directories online (eBay daylight robbery I know ...). I've also got the brilliant 'Appetite For Reduction' by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, which I've heard is mainly low- or no-syn so I look forward to making up some interesting recipes!

My main downfalls are wine (I get through a bottle a night usually, which has to stop ...), and forgetting to take packed lunch to work which leaves me famished when I get home resulting in pigging out on giant portions. I don't particularly have a sweet tooth, so I'm rarely tempted by desserts but crisps ... mmmm ... I've downloaded the Mimimins app for my phone, and fully intend to post everything I eat using it, so hopefully I'll stay on the straight and narrow and lose the excess weight and be maintaining a healthy diet in no time at all!

So, I guess I'd best start posting some food entries then ...

 

[vegovis]

So, today so far I've had:

BREAKFAST
2 weetabix with 125ml sweetened soya milk (HEXA & HEXB1)
2 cups of tea with sweetener and dash of milk in each

LUNCH
Leftovers of last night's 'Red Bean Rice' taken from '125 Green Recipes'

RED BEAN RICE (SYN FREE!)
(Serves 4)
Can of kidney beans, drained
2 large onions, chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, crushed
2 large red peppers, de-seeded and sliced
1 can chopped tomatoes
1/4 pint of water
8oz long grain rice, rinsed
3 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp chilli powder
ground black pepper

Fry onions for 10 mins, stir in garlic & pepper and cook for 1-2 mins. Add tomatoes, water, rice, spices and black pepper. Bring to the boil, reduce heat and cook gently for 40-45 minutes or until rice is cooked (stir regularly and add more water if needed). Remove pan from heat, leave to stand (lid on) for 10-15 mins, stir in the kidney beans.

I added a bit of tabasco as well, as I like spicey!

TEA
Mashed potato, 3 Linda McCartney sausages (6 SYNS), baked beans.

So, I guess I need a few more SYNS today or should I leave it at 6? I also need another HEXB so might see if I have some tinned fruit in the cupboard. If anyone has any advice, please feel free to post away!

 

[icklerockchick]

Will be interested in seeing your vegan recipes for another HEB could always have some toast or another bowl of cereal later on? That's what I usually use them on.

You should probably have some more syns too, it's best to start out close to the full 15syns a day so that later on if weight loss slows down you can reduce them a bit to help shift the weight if that makes sense?

Have contemplated going vegan, been veggie for about 6 months. Don't think I could give up chocolate and cake and all the little things that have a tiny bit of something in them that makes them non-vegan

X

 

[icklerockchick]

Oh and as for the Linda McCartney sausages the red onion & rosemary ones are syn free or the italian ones are 0.5syn each. Don't know why they are so much lower in syns than the normal ones but I love them all! x

 

[vegovis]

I went for 178g of tinned pineapple (in juice) for HEXB, but I still need to top up on some syns. Oddly, I don't feel hungry though, so I might just have a bigger breakfast tomorrow (perhaps toast AND cereal?) and leave it at 6 syns today.

Have you tried the non-dairy mik chocolate they have in supermarkets? It's in the free-from range. The chocolate buttons are the nicest. There are some AMAZING cake recipes at Fatfree Vegan Recipes too, which might help you to steer away from dairy. Maybe not quite so amazing SYN values though ...

Unfortunately Linda McCartney Italian sausages have milk in them, but the red onion ones sound very nice! Probably cost an arm and a leg though, and they don't sell them in my local Tesco so I'll have to hunt around for them. The regular sausages are very often on offer so I tend to stock up on them.

 

[vegovis]

Found a synful snack! one Alpro Soya Vanilla pot - 5.5 syns! Blimey, I've thrown back 3 or 4 of these a day in the past; I'm starting to see how Slimming World might actually get me losing weight now.

So, that's 11.5 syns today. I think I need to start planning my daily food intake ahead to spread the sins out a bit more. Can't wait for my SW directories to arrive so that I can check out some low-syn snacks. I might even get a Sharpie out and label my cupboards with Syn values to make meal-times a bit easier.

 

[MsJean]

Hi there sounds like you have got to grips with the plan really well, I use my HexBs mainly for cereal or bread, as far as Syns go they disappear on vegan margarine, salad cream and chocolate. Good luck will check in soon.
Jean

 

[MsJean]

Should just mention as I pressed the submit button I accidentally touched a green icon thingy, sorry about that!

 

[Micci]

Hi, great to see another vegan here doing SW. I'm an ethical vegan too with a food and angst riddden diary tucked away in the silver members' section. If I get it together I'll start a food only one here too.

Thanks for the recipes. How about seeds and nuts for your HEXBs?

Wishing you all the best on your weight loss journey and welcome to the forum.

 

[icklerockchick]

The red onion Linda McC sausages I found in Asda they were on offer £1 a box the other week so I bought several boxes.

Yeh it's a shame so many of the vegan friendly versions of things are higher in syns. I don't have a lot of money for food budget which along with the ethical reasons is why I went veggie but just find vegan substitutes a lot more expensive, obviously fruit/veg/beans/grains are the cheap part and consist of a lot of the diet.

Vegan recipe books have some amazing looking ideas just need tweaking to make them SW friendly I guess.

Best of luck with your journey! x

 

[vegovis]

Unfortunately, I'm a vegan who can't tolerate nuts and seeds! I'm not allergic, just can't stand them. I usually try to sneak nuts in with homemade pesto, and can just about manage seeded bread but as far 'neat' seeds ... Bleeurgh. I even tried ordering Graze boxes for several weeks to try and force myself into trying as many varieties of nuts and seeds as possible, but it's no use.

Stupidly, I've forgotten my packed lunch today. So, after 2 Weetabix and milk for breakfast (got up late so didn't have time for toast too), I now have a banana and a bottle of water to last me until 7:30 when I get home. Grrrrr ...

 

[vegovis]

Lovely OH had prepared a syn-free curry & couscous for when I got home last night! So, I stuffed my face with that, and had some more tinned pineapple (HEXB2), and an Alpro Vanilla Pot (5.5 syns). So, my daily total was ... 5.5 Syns.

Today, I had 2 weetabix & soya milk for breakfast (HEXA & HEXB1), and took a pot of leftover curry and couscous along with a banana for lunch. This evening OH made a pasta sauce with Loyd Grossman Tomato & Chilli Pasta Sauce (10 syns!), and 100g of Tesco Meatfree Vegetarian Mince (1 syn). I haven't had half of the sauce, but I thought I'd over-estimate my portion as being 5 syns.

I succumbed to a small slice of Soda Bread spread with houmous too. Not sure how many syns that would be ... 3?

So, today's total = 8 syns.

I'm finding this diet staggering easy to stick to so far, and my three Slimming World Directories arrived today, so I'm having great fun flicking through and 'syning' my cupboards.

Unfortunately, this weekend it's my birthday and I'm going out on Friday AND Saturday for a meal and drinks, so I fear the diet will go out of the window! I see that a 250ml glass of wine is 8 points, and a measure of vodka is 4 points, so I could attempt to be restrained and, with a boring meal choice, keep within my points. Or I could think - sod it, it's my birthday and have a couple of days off arty0051:

I've read various things about stock-piling syns, and I know for sure my party-animal SW friend does this most weeks, so the fact that I've stayed relatively low-syn this week might help me out too. It's rare to find a vegan dessert when eating out (although a veggie restaurant near me does an amazing vegan sticky toffee pudding) so perhaps I wouldn't really blow the syn balance anyway?

 

[vegovis]

Well, I've clearly failed in my mission to post a daily food diary!

Bizarrely, my weigh-in last Monday (after a birthday weekend full of booze and food) showed I'd lost SIX POUNDS!?! I have no idea how that happened. That's scary quick weight loss. As a result of this speedy weight loss I've been really slack with SYN counting this week (and especially slack with my endeavours to not drink wine every night ...).

However, now I need to get back on track. I went out boozing for the rugby yesterday, and will be out next Saturday doing the same so I really need to concentrate on sensible syn-free eating this week to avoid piling on the pounds again. I'm desperate to be slim and less wobbly by the summer, and seeing as summer is fast approaching (only 15 weeks until my first holiday/school trip abroad), things need to change!

So, today I have had:

Breakfast: Baked Beans (FREE) on 2 slices of Granary Hovis (B1 & 2 - can I do this? Or do the healthy extras need to be different?), with 2 tsps Pure Sunflower Spread (3)
TOTAL: 3

Lunch: A mountain of wholemeal spaghetti (I'm slightly hungover ...), with homemade pasta sauce (one onion chopped and fried in Fry Light, dried chilli flakes, dried basil, 3 cloves of garlic (crushed), 1 tin of tomatoes, tomato puree, balsamic vinegar, frozen spinach, ground black pepper).
TOTAL: 0

Now I'm stuffed, still moderately hungover, and craving fruit juice.

 

[icklerockchick]

Welcome back! You can use both HEBs as same thing however granary bread doesn't technically count as a heb it's supposed to be regular wholemeal bread. If it seems to be working ok for you then personally I wouldn't worry too much. Some people follow sw to the letter whereas others tweak it a bit to suit them. X

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[vegovis]

Bugger. I fell off the SW wagon AGAIN yesterday. Can I blame the hangover and tiredness? No, you're right, it's just me being rubbish ...

From what I remember, after my sterling start to the day, I had:

Mixed salad with a sachet of dressing (no idea how many syns) with a bread roll.
About 1/5 of a Mrs Crimbles Dutch Apple cake, with an entire carton of Oatley Cream
1 pot of Sainsbury's Bombay potato

I had something else as well I'm sure. Like, another whole meal, but I can't remember. Total rubbish.

So, AGAIN today I started afresh. I missed breakfast before leaving the house as I got up too late, so when got home at lunchtime I had the remnants of yesterday's pasta sauce with another batch of pasta (syn-free). I then had to dash into town so popped into Holland & Barrett to buy some Fry's Sausages (bloomin' expensive! Even with the buy-one-get-one-half-price deal), and as I was thirsty and hadn't had my milk allowance with breakfast I had a little carton of Alpro Strawberry Milk - 7.5 SYNS!!!! I won't be doing that again ...

When I got home, I was hungry again (shopping stresses me out!) so I had two of those Fry's sausages (can't say they were particularly tasty, which should help them last I suppose), with one slice of granary bread (not a HEXB, but I'm 'tweaking' until the loaf is all used up, so it is a HEXB as far as I'm concerned!) spread with one tsp of Pure (1.5), and a few tablespoons of baked beans.

For tea, lovely OH has made up a massive batch of pasta with tomatoey vegetabley sauce (free). Unfortunately, I'm still hungry. I think this is due to the lack of protein today, so I must try to put more beans into my meals.

So, assuming I don't suddenly find a cake and feel the need to devour it, I've had a total of 9 syns today, which I'm not particularly happy about as I was trying to stockpile ahead of the inevitable booze binge for the rugby on Saturday.

So, my goals for tomorrow:
*Have breakfast - think I need to avoid feeling hunger at any point of the day.
*Eat more (free) proteins to fill me up.
*Drink more water - I've realised I barely have a pint of liquid throughout the day, and that's with counting tea ... I've read that thirst is apparently sometimes confused as hunger too.

 

[icklerockchick]

Least you have a plan now and things to work on. Shame about the sausages, I love the Linda McCartney ones best out of all the veggie sausages, think the normal ones are vegan too? X

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[vegovis]

Darn! Keep forgetting to hunt down those red onion Linda McCartney sausages. We usually stockpile the normal sausages when they're £1 a box (we have a freezer drawer FULL of them), but this means I regularly suffer from LM sausage fatigue (which sounds rather wrong now I've written it ...).

I need to attempt to get up early for work tomorrow to make lunch (just couscous and veg probably), and also have a large breakfast. AND take a bottle of water. I think I'll leave my SW directories somewhere more obvious and hope OH gets the hint and prepares a nice syn-free meal for when I get home at 7:30!

 

[icklerockchick]

Haha good plan. The red onion sausages are £1 a box in Asda just now. I never pay more than that for them, if none of the supermarkets have them on offer the normal sausages are always 2 boxes for £2 in farm foods, so is the vege mince I do tend to overdose on the Linda mcC sausages then get a bit sick of them, my other obsession is Asda meat free burgers only half a syn each and tasty! Not sure if they are vegan though x

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[vegovis]

I really must get to Asda soon! We do our regular shop at Tesco or Co-Op but I think we'll have to make an exception if the sausages are £1 (and they definitely don't do them at Tesco :cry.

Today has been very successful (so far). I started the day with a weight-check as I'd forgotten (too scared to check) yesterday, and astonishingly I'm still 133lbs! Phew.

So, the food bit:

Breakfast: 2 weetabix (HEXB1) with soya milk (HEXA), AND 1 slice of bread (yes, granary, but I'm tweaking so it's a HEXB2) spread with 1tsp Pure (1.5)
TOTAL: 1.5

Lunch: I actually managed to get up early! So, I threw together a very quick lunch of couscous, dried chilli flakes, lemon juice, 1 tbsp tomato puree (0.5), 1/2 a tin of aduki beans and some paprika. It actually tasted ok!
TOTAL: 0.5

Tea: Lovely OH has just made sweet potato/normal potato mash with steamed spring greens and one Tesco Meatfree Vegetable Quarter Pounder (4.5). I seasoned with homemade mint-sauce (vinegar, dried mint, sweetener), so I hope that's free? I'd normally have smothered it in brown sauce ...
TOTAL: 4.5

So, today's total stands at 6.5 so far. I must admit, I'm still a little but hungry (and I'm missing my nightly glass(es) of wine ...), so I still need to make some more adjustments I think. Weirdly, I've never really had a sweet tooth, but I know find myself craving anything sweet. Odd. I wish there were a vegan Mullerlight alternative ...

Can I also say a big THANKS! to you icklerockchick; the fact that you're reading and posting here is really spurring me on to stick with the healthy eating.

 

[icklerockchick]

I always pop on at night and have a wee look through the diaries I'm subscribed to on my phone, helps keep me focused too! Tomato purée is now free (used to be syns) so saved a whopping half a syn there! ;-)

If you are only using a couple syns a day then you can totally have some wine too! Can have 15syns a day. I now usually buy the mini bottles as I find with a whole bottle I just want to drink it all! Or you can use your syns weekly so keep them at about 10 a day during the week then at the weekend use the saved up syns to have the whole bottle of wine :-D x

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